Squeeze EVEN MORE Out of Your Square Foot Garden

Today we’re going to do something a little bit different on the blog. Kevin, the tech and marketing guy for the Square Foot Gardening Foundation is going to share some methods for getting even more out of your Square Foot Garden than you already do! As we know, SFG gives you 100% of the harvest in 20% of the space, but now we’re taking that even further so it gives you over 100% of the harvest in 20% of the space!

Enter Kevin

I’ve been working with the Square Foot Gardening Foundation for almost a year now, and have had the pleasure of learning the Square Foot Method straight from the inventor himself: Mel Bartholomew. I’ve been gardening for two years, and even run my own hydroponic gardening blog myself. When working with Mel, it’s obvious that he is always thinking of ways to spread the SFG message or improve the method even just one tiny bit to make it easier, better, and more fun for everyone who already loves Square Foot Gardening, which is what makes it so fun and exciting to work on Square Foot Gardening with him.

While we were working on answering reader comments, emails, and questions on our fall gardening post, we came across a woman who mentioned that many of her friends didn’t transplant their crops at all! Instead, they just pulled out their lettuce, carrots, and other plants at a young age to have a nice crop of baby vegetables. I suppose they probably put a few of their plants into their fall Square Foot Garden, but for the most part they snacked on the baby veggies as a fun and easy way to keep producing food in the fall time.

That got me thinking about something that I do in my own Square Foot Garden to increase the amount of food I can harvest by quite a large amount. I shared it with Mel and he mentioned that he had come up with the same idea, and that it was actually in his original Square Foot Gardening book! We chatted about it and brainstormed some new ways for you to squeeze more produce out of your SFG.

The Big Idea

As you know, the spacing for anything you can grow in a Square Foot Garden will always be either 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants per square foot. When you plant the 1 or 4 per square foot plants, there is always a lot of room left in the square that you can take advantage of while the main plants are sprouting and getting to a normal size. Before I go further, here are some plants that are spaced at either 1 or 4 per square foot:

1 Per Square Foot

Cabbage

Broccoli

Cauliflower

4 Per Square Foot

Basil

Lettuce

Swiss Chard

All of these plants leave quite a bit of empty space in the square foot when they are just starting from seed. To take advantage of this, you can plant more veggies in the same square, provided they follow these requirements:

They must be fast growing

They must be small

Examples

One Per Square Foot

In this example, we have planted a broccoli in the middle of the square. However, broccoli takes quite a while to actually mature into a large plant, and in the meantime there is a lot of wasted space. We can take advantage of that by planting radishes, baby lettuce, or carrots around the edges. After a month or month and a half, you will be able to pluck 12 more plants from a single square that’s already growing a large head of broccoli!

Four Per Square Foot

Here, we have four lettuce plants as our “main harvest.” However, lettuce is generally harvested leaf by leaf over the course of its life, so it will never get to be a huge size. You can take advantage by planting any of the plants mentioned above in a 3×3 matrix: one in the middle, one in each corner, and one in the middle of each side. Then give it some time and you’ll get 9 more plants from this square as well!

Get Out There and Try It!

We would love to see any pictures you all have of this method, of if you have any creative ways to squeeze out more harvest from a single Square Foot Garden of your own. Mel has many more tips and tricks stored away, and I’ve tried to get them out of him but he keeps saying, “Just wait…” so I think you’ll have to stay tuned to the blog to see if he’ll release some of his gems!

14 Comments

It would be great if you could send us pictures of your attempt! Also, if you could figure out new methods and share them that would be great as well

Mel

Coren In mdAugust 4, 2012 at 1:39 pm -

i have about fifty. Of these bean,beets and Corn works well but you need plant whole 4ft. x 4ft bed. With the mix.

Mel BartholomewAugust 9, 2012 at 1:22 pm -

Dear Coren,

I really liked your letter because it showed perhaps not only how to get more out of your garden, but different ways to plant it. I didn’t quite understand and I wonder if you could send us some pictures of each 4×4. Do you mean that you’ve planted an entire 4×4 with beans? That would be 9 plants per square foot by 16 squares, which is an awful lot of beans. Are they all the same variety? I’m curious to know why you would need so many beans. The only time we plant an entire 4×4 in one crop would be if we wanted to sell them as I mentioned in my 2nd book, Cash from Square Foot Gardening (available on our website), or if you’re feeding a whole group of people, or if you’re preserving for the winter.

We do plant corn in an entire 4×4, but that’s because of pollination technicalities. I would very much like to see pictures that you have of your garden if you could send them. Thanks and happy gardening.

I did radishes to look like the five on a dice, it looks creative and gives them plenty of space. I also took a squash lattice wall on the N side of the back of my 8×4 ft SFG, and am growing the squash on the front of the lattice as well as the back of the lattice.

Mel BartholomewAugust 9, 2012 at 1:24 pm -

Hi Meleah,

That’s definitely another creative way to squeeze more out of your SFG. Would you mind sending me pictures of that to askmelsfg@gmail.com? I would really like to see more examples of creative SFGs, it just makes me so pleased to see what everyone is doing with the method to get even more produce out of a small 4×4 space.

[…] the last post on squeezing more out of your Square Foot Garden, I just wanted to share with you another technique you can use for a SINGLE square that nets you […]

tommie, western NCAugust 19, 2012 at 9:54 pm -

can’t wait to experience all the good eating and learning about the different plants I haven’t enjoyed in the past

Mel BartholomewAugust 20, 2012 at 2:40 pm -

Hi Tommie,

Glad to hear you enjoyed the article. If you do end up planting using some of these techniques, I’d love to see a picture or two!

Happy Gardening,
Mel

Michele KennedyAugust 27, 2012 at 8:10 pm -

We are so excited that our local garden center recommend your book and site to us. We are a homeschooling family and gardening has been a huge part of our family project this year. We had great success but our garden was messy and not organized for picking. We underplanted some veggies and over planted others.I can’t tell you how we look forward to building our raised beds this fall and prepping them for the spring. I just love the pictures and ideas and know this is just the thing we need to make our little Chicago city plot into a growing home. Thank you!

ShelleyAugust 29, 2012 at 12:46 pm -

I have done this before. For different reasons though. I tend to plant onions or garlic on the corners around many of the “skinnier” plants like hot peppers because it seems like wasted space.

coren in mdAugust 31, 2012 at 8:11 am -

mel what meant by 50 of these is I have 50 combinations of mix planted squares.
one of them is corn, bean, beets

a 4×4 with two combinations of 1ft squares alternating
square type 1:

beans beets beans
beets corn beets
beans beets beans

square type 2 :

beets beans beets
beans corn beans
beets beans beets

8 of each of of above 1ft squares in 4 ftx4 ft box in checker board pattern.

Mel BartholomewSeptember 4, 2012 at 4:06 pm -

Cohen,

Ah, I see what you mean. You know, I would really love to see a picture of those sometime because that sounds like a very interesting way to plant a square foot garden. Any chance you could send some photos?

Best,
Mel

coron in mdSeptember 4, 2012 at 10:07 pm -

mel i can send you diagram but i don’t have a good picture of square planted like
i described above.